Day 18 – Wednesday 25 July 2012

Nordstrand – Kampen-Sylt

Campsite

Camping Kampen, Mowenbeg 4, 25999 Kampen-Sylt,
www.campen-in-kampen.de/

Notes

Finally I caught up with Torfmann! Well, not in person but at least we caught the same ferry, a year or two apart. On a very warm cloudless morning I peddled the few miles from the campsite to Norderhafen and checked my ticket with a nice man in a wooden shack on the harbour side. I'd given myself plenty of time to catch the ferry and so had about four hours to kill. I locked my bike in the car park at the harbour and went up to a cafe/restaurant overlooking everything. Boats to and from various of the islands came and went as I dozed in a shady spot under an umbrella, taking morning coffee and later a good lunch.

Finally my Adler-Schiffe boat arrived (I'd booked a passage for me and my bike before starting the tour). The boat takes foot passengers and bicycles only. If you want to cross to Sylt by car you have to take either the Deutsche Bahn SyltShuttle across the Hindenburgdamm causeway or take the ferry from Denmark (which we did to get back to England). I heaved my loaded bike onto the gangplank and put it with another 20 or so bicycles in the bow. The ferry set off at high speed with a massive plume of water shooting from the stern and hopped from one island to another, stopping for residents and holiday-makers. Finally we arrived at Sylt and I spotted Liz and Eva waiting for me on the jetty. They offered to put my bike on the car and drive me to our camp site, but I had to complete the journey properly. We enjoyed coffee and cakes at a very nice cafe before I dropped my bags in the back of Liz's car and cycled the last few miles to Kampen. Torfmann carries on to List at the very end of the island, but by the time I arrived at Kampen and found where Liz had pitched our tent I thought that I'd probably done enough.

We spent three days on Sylt relaxing in the sunshine. We looked round the boutique shops on the island (no prices in the windows) marvelling at the well-found thatched holiday homes as well as the abundance of four wheel drive Mercedes, BMW, Porsche and Range Rover vehicles driving around. Sylt is reputed to have the most expensive housing in Germany, and it's as flat as a pancake so what do you need four-track vehicles for?

We spent some time on the beach closest to our camp site as, camping there, we didn't need to pay the entry fee that was required for other beaches. I suppose that provides funds for maintenance of the infrastructure as well as keeping the amount of litter down (but you don't find much litter in Germany anyway).

At the end of our stay on the island we drove up to List and caught the ferry to Havneby on the island of Romo, and then crossed to the Danish mainland across the Romovej causeway. We drove up to Esbjerg at a dignified 50 mph (the maximum speed on non-motorways). At this speed the traffic moved steadily and no-one attempted to overtake aggressively. It was so relaxing! At Esbjerg we caught an overnight ferry to Harwich and thence home to Birmingham.